We take a dive into the murky world of F1 sponsorship, from names you probably know to some you’ve likely never heard of.
We’ve been saturated in Splunk and we’re still none the wiser.
It’s written down the side of the McLaren Formula 1 car that I spent hours watching last year and I have no clue what it is. Keen to find out more, I found a quote from Zak Brown, the McLaren Racing CEO.
“Splunk is very critical in both our on-track and off-track performance,” he says. “You need to have both because if we’re not competitive off-track, we won’t be competitive on-track.”
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Sage words indeed. It turns out that Splunk is a piece of software that tells you why your server has just crashed. How prosaic. I was hoping it was something a bit racier.
F1 has always had some strange and opaque sponsors. Bin Laden (yes, that one) used to be a sponsor of Williams and the logo of the family company appeared on their FW07 car.
More recently, the Haas F1 team was sponsored by Rich Energy, a soft drinks business that failed to pay its bills and, while it was sponsoring Haas, had the princely sum of £581 (AUD$1104) in cash at the bank.
That’s the more controversial end of the spectrum. Today, we’re bombarded with names that I can’t even begin to fathom. Most of them are boring IT ‘solutions’, AI startups or fintech companies: Atlassian on the Williams, Revolut on the Audi, Groq on the McLaren or Solera on the Mercedes-AMG.
The list is seemingly endless. Who knew we had so many problems that needed solving by loud men wearing chinos, branded gilets and Tudor Black Bay watches?
Give me Jean-Pierre Van Rossem instead. He’s the man behind Moneytron, a sponsor of the 1989 Onyx team because, well, he seems more interesting. Fraudster, part-time politician, heroin addict and mastermind behind a Ponzi scheme that hooked in the Belgian royal family, in 1991 Van Rossem was sentenced to five years for fraud.
Incredibly, he tried to avoid jail time by forming the libertarian political party ROSSEM and claiming political immunity. Much like the Onyx F1 car, it didn’t work very well.
Today’s sponsors are a good deal more reputable than in the old days, but while there are obviously a lot of blue-chip brands buying into F1, I’m more fascinated by the Splunks.
Einhell is the official tool expert of the Mercedes-AMG F1 team, Singha is the official beer partner of Haas, and Shamir is the optical performance partner of Alpine. Bubba Gump’s is the official disappointing shrimp partner of the Cadillac team. Okay, so I made the last one up.
The French team also features Oakberry as a sponsor. One of its obligations is to supply an acai bar to the motorhome in each of the European rounds. Now there’s a taxing assignment. It also released the energy-dense Jack Doohan Bowl, which probably tastes of bitterness and despair.
In F1 sponsorship, as with most things, timing is everything. The ‘Visit Qatar’ sponsorship on the Audi F1 team’s car is a case in point.
Even the old spectre of tobacco advertising still gets a look-in. Look closely at the McLaren car and you’ll see sponsorship by a crew called ‘A Better Tomorrow’. Sounds vaguely new-age, but it’s British American Tobacco’s “potentially reduced risk products”. Vapes in other words.
Meanwhile, tobacco company Philip Morris International has snuck its Zyn sponsorship prominently onto Ferrari’s 2026 car, the logo right above the number on the nose for ‘selected races’. In case you were wondering, they’re nicotine pouches.
Success is the drug. While newbies Cadillac only have nine sponsors, I stopped counting at 55 for current champions McLaren. Given that global F1 audiences have risen by 68 per cent since the first season of Netflix’s Drive to Survive, it’s no wonder companies want to be associated with the sport.
And just once in a while, drugs are the drugs. One sponsor we won’t be seeing this year is VGW Play, the gaming business that has sponsored Ferrari in recent years. Its boss, Perth-based billionaire Laurence Escalante, has run into a few of his own problems lately, being slapped with drugs and family violence charges. Not seeing Lewis Hamilton with the VGW Play logo on his helmet seems to be the least of Mr Escalante’s concerns right now.
Finally, one to wrap your head round. There’s one sponsor whose logo appears on every single one of the cars on the F1 grid. Any guesses as to what it is? Answers in the comments.
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